Rising of A Mage
Written by J.M. Fosberg
Anwar is part Giant and apparently gifted with magical leanings. He’s bonded to a healing Priestess who seems to want to do all kinds of services for him. Growing into his powers he forges bonds with Wizards, Kampur’s guard force and…the king.
This was short, entertaining and I made it through to the end even though I think I was reading the first edition. Good job, I give it a three out of five entertainment sword strikes.
Sunwielder
by D. Wallace Peach
Gryff Worden just wants to live his life, learn his forms, raise horses with his Uncle and be married to his love, Allanna. The opening of this tale has his family slaughtered and an old woman gives him a mysterious medallion. He seems to wake from this in ‘a years gone by’ encounter with Lord poopy pants (Brant) and it dawns on him that he has gotten a do-over.
Much of the rest of the book goes on like this with paths of error taken and redone as the medallion spends its power. The medieval setting is the long lasting war between two kingdoms; Sol’karans and the Aldykarans who had in the past been Masters and slaves respectively. The Sol’karans want that status to return so they are driving the attack. The Aldykarans would do better but they’ve spent less time building up for war and definitely less time training for it. Welcome to the ground hog day of meat grinders.
I enjoyed the character building in this work and to some extent the mythos. The Edriisans are a war capable people in the middle of these two populations who choose not to war, to live for the day and to be beholden to no other man or kingdom. Interesting. It is from an old woman of this bunch that Gryff gets the Sunwield in the first place.
The editing and quality is very good in this book and I feel that all the people in my life that read fantasy, regardless of gender, would enjoy this tale. I’m giving this work four out of five.
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